Sommige hoofdstukken beter dan andren, maar overal gezien de mooite waarde.

A mixed bag. Some of the chapters are really interesting and well-written, but some a very dry and to be honest a bit pointless. For instance, a whole chapter is devoted to the question as to whether Johan de Witt owned a parrot. Not only is that completely uninteresting question, but the answer is
(view spoiler). It makes you wonder if the editor had asked the author of that chapter to contribute something and didn't have the courage not to include it when it turned out to be pointless.

The book feels a little like it was written in the last century. For a start, of the many authors, less than ten percent are women. I mean, really! Secondly, there are a couple of chapters about the Dutch colonies, and they are almost entirely apparently oblivious to the social and political context. The war on Java is mentioned as being an inconvenience for the naturalists. There is barely a mention of the idea that these naturalists were part of an occupying force that had no business being there. The word "occupation" (bezetting) is mentioned in the book, but that is in a later chapter and about the French occupation of the Netherlands. Rather painful that that word is used about the French, but not about the Dutch. Phrases like 'crawling like an Indian' are also not really acceptable these days.

Having said that, much of the book is well-written and full of interesting facts. Apparently, the young Vincent van Gogh had an extensive beetle collection and knew all their scientific names. Knowing that he had an extensive and detailed knowledge of natural history indeed sheds a new light on his paintings. Rudo Reiling sums up the different navigation methods of pigeons in a few nicely-written concise paragraphs, in contrast to other books I have read where the authors have spent much more space with muddy, unclear explanations.

The e-book was poorly formatted. There was no table of contents (just chapter numbers), which is especially irritating for a multiple author book like this. The total page numbers wasn't shown properly in the status bar, as a result of which the reading progress was also not shown properly. All a bit amateurish from the publisher.

Despite my criticisms, the book is definitely worth reading. I would give the reader one tip. Don't try and read it all at once, but a chapter at a time. It is more digestible that way.